MANILA–All major global powers are flexing muscles in East Asian waters, with the US, China and even Russia conducting major drills across the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia in recent days. While global attention focuses on the potential for a major conflagration in the Middle East, great powers are sleepwalking toward conflict in Asia.
Last week, the US destroyer USS Dewey (DDG-105) and Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Stuart (FFH153) conducted bilateral operations in the Strait of Malacca, a show of joint force in a crucial maritime chokepoint. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy responded by deploying its Dongdiao class surveillance ships to the East and South China Sea.
Beyond naval deployments, Washington and Beijing have also been fortifying their military presence in the area. The US will likely retain the Typhon missile system in the Philippines for the foreseeable future after its controversial deployment ahead of the Balikatan annual exercises earlier this year.
A top US general publicly hailed the move as “incredibly important” to American regional strategy, namely the Biden administration’s aim to establish an arc of military alliances and missile defense systems across the Western Pacific in anticipation of a potential direct conflict with China.
For Beijing’s part, the Asian superpower is building its own network of stealth-penetrating radars in adjacent waters to counter American air superiority in the event of a contingency.
Once completed, the new facilities will “significantly increase China’s signals intercept and electronic warfare capabilities across the disputed Paracel Islands archipelago and add to a wider surveillance network spanning much of the South China Sea,” a report by the UK think tank Chatham House argues.
Although concentrated on Ukraine, Russia has also flexed its naval muscle and doubled down on its military diplomacy by conducting drills in Myanmar and, for the first time, Indonesia, where newly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto is expected to adopt a more proactive and multi-aligned foreign policy.
To underscore its growing resolve, Southeast Asia’s largest nation also recently drove away a Chinese coast guard vessel entering Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the so-called North Natuna Sea.
Meanwhile, Vietnam, following a few short years of relatively calm ties with its northern neighbor, is also doubling down on its military footprint in the disputed waters.
To prepare for possible conflict with China in adjacent waters, the Southeast Asian dynamo is adding a new 1.5 kilometer to its sprawling network of military facilities across the South China Sea, where it controls up to 27 land features.
Decades of rapid economic growth and expanding trade have disincentivized any major conflict in Asia over the past quarter of a century. The last time two regional states came to blows was the bloody skirmishes between Vietnamese and Chinese troops in 1988 over the disputed Johnson South Reef in the South China Sea.
Over the next three decades, however, China managed to build vast networks of influence and trade across the region, while also dramatically deepening its economic interdependence with the US and its key Asian allies of Japan, Australia and South Korea.
Today, Southeast Asia is the largest export destination for Chinese products, while China is a major investor and source of technology in much of the region. Bilateral trade between Beijing and major Western economies is also in the trillions of dollars annually, underscoring the depth of economic ties among all major players in the Indo-Pacific.
For the past three decades, almost all regional states, regardless of their political systems, have relied on economic performance for public legitimacy. But China’s rapid rise, America’s domestic and foreign policy troubles and intensified disputes across the Western Pacific have created a geopolitical tinderbox of unprecedented magnitude involving multiple major powers and the world’s biggest and most dynamic economies.
The Biden administration has relied on an “integrated deterrence” strategy, which seeks to leverage its vast network of alliances in the region to constrain China’s assertiveness. Accordingly, it has also expanded joint drills with key regional allies such as Australia.
“Every time we operate together, we strengthen our capabilities and shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” US Vice Admiral Fred Kacher, commander of the US 7th Fleet, said in a statement following the latest US-Australia drills reaching from Taiwan Straits to the Malacca Straits. “This exercise further builds on our existing interoperability and combined readiness we have with the Royal Australian Navy,” he added.
For China, however, these exercises are both provocative and an impetus for further enhancing its own military presence in disputed areas. The PLA-Navy’s Dongdiao-class surveillance ship Tianshuxing (795) was sighted last week just 62 miles west of the island of Amami Oshima of Japan before heading for the Philippine Sea in the Western Pacific.
Chinese Liaoning Carrier Strike Group, meanwhile, reportedly sailed north through the Taiwan Strait.
China is also preparing for high-tech warfare by strengthening its electronic war capacity. According to the Chatham House report, China is building new stealth-penetrating radar systems based on satellite imagery that show distinctive hexagonal grouping of SIAR synthetic impulse and aperture radar) poles, a control tower and several mobile missile staging pads on the Triton Island in the disputed Paracel Islands archipelago
According to the Chatham House report, “Once completed, the radar on Triton will form what is believed to be a wider network of at least three overlapping counter-stealth radars built across Chinese bases in the South China Sea over the past decade.”
China seems to be reacting to growing American combat stealth aircraft deployments across the region, including F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and F-35 stealth fighters.
Earlier this year, the US Air Force deployed as many as 186 F-22s to participate in Australia’s major Pitch Black international air combat exercise. American stealth fighters – both F22s and F-35s – have also visited Singapore, Indonesia (Bali), Brunei, Thailand and the Philippines.
US Pacific Air Forces commander Kevin Schneider said the fighters’ rising presence in the South China Sea is a reflection of the “growing understanding and awareness of the threat posed by Beijing in their illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive activities.”
He claimed there is a “greater desire [of our regional partners] to do more and a willingness to allow us to transit airplanes through their locations, their willingness to expand exercises to be perhaps more realistic for the threat environments that we face.”
Meanwhile, a Russia Navy surface action group consisting of corvettes, consisting of RFS Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339), RFS Rezkiy (343) and RFS Gromkiy (335) recently conducted joint drills with Myanmar counterparts in the Indian Ocean.
“The main objective of the exercise is to comprehensively develop and strengthen naval cooperation between the countries, jointly counter global threats and ensure the safety of civilian shipping in the Asia-Pacific region,” Russia said in a joint statement.
In coming weeks, the Russia Navy contingent will join Indonesian counterparts in Surabaya, Java, for the Orruda 2024 exercises. Under the newly installed Prabowo administration, Indonesia is expected to adopt an Indian-style assertive and multi-aligned foreign policy vis-à-vis all major powers.
“The China Coast Guard-5402 (CCG-5402) re-entered the Indonesian jurisdiction on Friday,” Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency said in a statement issued on October 26 after repelling a Chinese coast guard vessel intruding into Indonesian waters at the southern edge of the South China Sea.
“Indonesia has a sovereign right to explore the natural resource in that area and that cannot be disturbed by any country,” the Indonesia maritime agency said in a statement.
Neighboring Vietnam, in turn, is also expected to adopt an increasingly assertive stance amid ongoing disputes with China in disputed waters. Last month, several Vietnamese fishermen were severely beaten and injured after being apprehended by Chinese authorities in the disputed Paracel Islands.
Vietnam condemned China and “demanded that Beijing respect its sovereignty in the Paracel Islands, launch an investigation and provide it with information about the attack.” Far from confined to diplomatic protests, Vietnam is quietly preparing for military contingencies by building what could be its largest airstrip in the disputed South China Sea.
Since 2021, Vietnam has dramatically enhanced its military presence on the Barque Canada reef, which could soon host a modern airstrip that could extend as long as three kilometers in coming years amid rapid reconstruction.
“The new airstrip will considerably expand Vietnam’s maritime patrol capabilities as the existing runway on Spratly Island is too short for larger aircraft,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told the media.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @Richeydarian